The Rickety Swing
by Black Tangled Heart
Summary: There’s a rickety porch swing in heaven, and the Lisbon girls find comfort in it and each other.


The Rickety Swing   
  
© 2004 Black Tangled Heart   
  
Disclaimer: I ought to kiss Sofia Coppola's feet.   
  
Betas: Kara & Petal. Thank you, my lovelies. Mwah.   
  
Dedication: For Ivy, because she's a dear.   
  
~*~  
  
All my sister Lux ever wanted was for someone to love her. The bikini tops and sassy smiles and tears that soaked her goose down pillow were cries for love. She could've gotten any boy she wanted, with her wheat-coloured hair and too-sweet perfume. It wasn't about the sex, even after the boys on the roof. It was about the emptiness she needed to fill, with the love that she never got.   
  
In those monoxide clouds, she saw Trip's face. Above her own painful coughing, she heard his voice. Even with the fumes and smoke, it was clear that he didn't love her. He liked her, sure. Liked the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled. Liked the sound of her laughter. Liked, but never loved her. When she joined me in heaven, we sat on the creaking porch swing outside our house, looking down at the world. She told me, "I still haven't found love. Ceel, what does that mean for me?" Her voice broke like a smashed music box, notes ringing and grating; the sweet and the bitter colliding. And she cried those pretty tears on pretty cheeks and I rocked her to sleep on the rickety swing   
  
All my sister Mary wanted was to be a cheerleader. She stared at pom-poms and short skirts the way a poor child might stare at licorice and peppermint through a frosted sweet shop window. It wasn't the high kicks and rhymes that drew her in. It was the chance to show the world how beautiful she was. To know that those hours in front of the mirror weren't wasted on longing.   
  
In the oven, she felt the heat, and a thousand adoring faces were watching her swelter in the sun as she cheered. She inhaled the poison like she'd always soaked up compliments. And when the paramedics pulled her from the oven, she still had that made-up face. Eyes lined with black and lips redder than blood. When she came to me in heaven and we danced in the rain together, looking down at the world, she said to me, "I still haven't heard the applause. Ceel, does that mean I've only got this face and nothing else?" And she cried crystalline tears and ruined her eye makeup; she bit her lips and her lipstick bled. And we danced ourselves into exhaustion and fell asleep next to Luxie on the rickety swing.   
  
All my sister Therese wanted was to be a scholar. She sacrificed her own studying time to help Bonnie with Chemistry, and in the mornings her eyes were bleary from hunching over her Calculus books. She never complained and was always diligent, but knew that smarts would only get her so far. She dreamed of a life so very far away from the classrooms and halls of our school. Of Ivy league university and business titles and success. She knew she had the mind and the fortitude. She helped each one of us with what we never understood. French, History, Culture, Politics. In her head, she was at university, poring over a good classic.   
  
She took a pill for every dream she'd dreamt; every degree she'd ever wanted. Literature, Law, Spanish. One two three. She took a pill for every hour of sleep lost in order to study. 4:26 AM, 3:13 AM, 4:39 AM. One two three. When she came to me in heaven and we picked wildflowers, looking down at the world, she said to me, "I never did get those scholarships. That acceptance envelope. Please, Ceel, tell me that all those long nights weren't for nothing." And she tore the petals from the flowers and threw them into the non-existent wind that never carried them away. She cried tears from those sleepy eyes and from her lips fell Shakespeare and Dickens and Plath and Poe. We crushed the flowers in our hands and curled up against the dirty pillows on the rickety swing.   
  
I never really knew what my sister Bonnie wanted. It was clear as day for Lux and Mary and Therese— all their desires plain to the eye and attainable, if our family had been different. I know Bonnie had dreams, but she never voiced them to us. She hid her wants behind a shy smile, forgot her worries with a kiss that created new ones. A sip of schnapps to forget mistakes at homecoming. It made her dizzy and loosed inhibitions from her mind. It never sweetened her outlook on life; never lifted the pencil-grey smears from a world where colour existed.   
  
The alcohol haze and the unspoken dreams vanished when her breath stopped. Her white skin darkened. All the chances she'd never taken dissolved with her breath when the rope tightened. And she strangled on every passed-up opportunity, every moment that could have given her a happy memory. When she came to me in heaven, we lay on our backs on the grass and let the sun warm our faces. She said to me, "I never found something to dream about, something to wish for in the future. You all had your dreams and you watched them die, but they were still dreams. Ceel, did I live a bad life because I never found a passion?" And she cried tears I'd never seen before, blurring her vision of heaven's rainbow-smudged sky. And we fell asleep in the dewy grass, listening to the groan of the rickety swing.   
  
The swing collapsed one day. It buckled under our combined weight – each limb and every burden from the life we'd left behind. Shaking our heads dizzily and rubbing our sore, scraped knees, we curled up in the field. Among the butterflies and dandelion floss. Barefoot and sunburned in white dresses that fit. It was our field of dreams, with boys who loved us and shimmering pom-poms and straight A's and new chances and smiles instead of tears.  
  
~*~ 


End file.
